


Glue

by the_authors_exploits



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Gen, M/M, i guess, the relationships are more hinted than anything....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-18
Updated: 2015-09-18
Packaged: 2018-04-21 08:00:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4821461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_authors_exploits/pseuds/the_authors_exploits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris tries to hold everyone together while they wait, but Josh has fallen apart</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glue

Chris felt incredibly guilty about the whole thing; maybe if he hadn’t been drinking so much, he could have stopped it. Could have done something. Which was why he was running himself ragged trying to hold everyone together in the lodge. He’d already given Ashley hot cocoa, ensured Jessica had ate (and not thrown up from anxiety), settled Emily on the couch with a few aspirin for her headache and a blanket, given Mike the job of cleaning the kitchen, and told Matt he should got down by the cable car and escort the police up.

That just left Sam, who he’d just stumbled upon in Hannah’s room.

“Ohmygod, Chris.” And she was crying; curled up around one of Hannah’s pillow, nearly doubled over with her sobs. “I’m so…sc-scared, Chris, ohmygod!”

So he did what any mature guy would do; what any good friend eaten by his own guilt would do. He sat on the bed by her and held her while she cried. He figured it would be cathartic for her to let it out and maybe she could get some sleep afterwards.

So he sat there with her, smoothing her hair and wiping her face, for an hour before she’d calmed into quiet, periodic hiccups; she carefully pulled away from his embrace, scrubbing her cheeks with the cuff of her sweater.

She huffed a laugh, a broken thing, and patted at his own pullover. “I messed up your sweater. Sorry ‘bout that, buddy…”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it; are you…are you…” Obviously she wasn’t ok or fine or even better.

But she understood and patted his arm before raising her hands to fix her hair. “Tired,” was her response; he could see it in her eyes so he nodded, accepting her response.

“Do you want to join the others or would you like to stay in here some more?”

Sam glanced about the room, taking in the picture frames, the half open dresser, the clothes and shoes spilling from the closet, the jewelry and makeup; she plucked at the bracelet on her wrist, a gift from Hannah a few months back, and came to a decision.

“I’ll go downstairs; thank you, Chris. I really…appreciated that.”

He nodded, shrugged, rubbed at the back of his neck. “It’s, yeah, no problem, Sam.”

They went out the door and down the hallway, Sam curled beneath Chris’s guiding arm, and down the stairwell; on the landing, however, Chris came to a new problem. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten about Josh, persay, just that he had planned to quickly take care of everyone else so he could solely focus on his friend; but between the girls’ emotional instability and Matt and Mike at each other’s throats, he’d forgotten.

Josh was at the foot of the stairs on the second to last step, arms curled around himself with one hand gripping at his shoulder and the other at his ribs, rocking back and forth and muttering occasionally; Mike was sitting next to him, obviously having been trying to calm the distraught man, but to no avail. He turned when the wooden staircase creaked and gave Chris a near desperate look; Chris gave Sam a quick squeeze about her shoulders before she slipped away, wiping at her eyes as she went to take a seat on the floor by the couch; Em tossed her the bottle of aspirin. Josh didn’t notice her pass between him and Mike, but he did notice when Chris sat down behind him.

Chris took a seat four stairs above Josh, directly behind him, and scooted down slowly, carefully, waiting a few moments after Josh flinched every time; he knew Josh might not be fully with them at the moment and his flinching seemed to solidify that thought. So he took it slow, let Josh realize he wasn’t a hallucination, until his best friend was sat between his legs just a step below himself; Mike rose slowly, make sure his movements were hardly noticeable on the side Josh was sitting. He left for the front door, saying something about keeping an eye out for Matt.

Still Josh flinched, and muttered again. “Should’ve…but didn’t, nope, didn’t but should’ve and…” the rest Chris couldn’t make out, so he wrapped his arms around his friend and forced his rocking to go side to side; this seemed to distress Josh, but Chris kept it up. “No, no, no, no, nooo…!”

“Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh; we’re gonna rock like this for a while, ok? Just for a little bit, ok?” He rested his head against Josh’s, temple to temple despite the position causing Chris’s glasses to go crooked. “We’re just gonna rock like this a bit… Just left to right, left to right. Come on, bro; say it with me? Left to right…”

“Left to right and left to right and left to right, L and R, heh…”

Chris pressed a hand to Josh’s clammy forehead. “Shh… Shh, we’re ok; we’re all ok…”

He caught the eye of Ashley from in the lounge area, who was obviously fighting back tears, but she still tried to give Chris an encouraging smile; he returned it best he could, still rocking, and adjusted his grip some. It dislodged Josh’s grip on himself and he clung to Chris instead; they all stayed like that. The girls in the lounge, huddled together, and Chris and Josh on the stairs.

Eventually, Josh calmed, slumping against Chris’s chest, and he let his head fall against Chris’s arm; Chris kept his chin pillowed on Josh’s shoulder. They’d stopped rocking, but occasionally Josh would mutter something— _“Wasn’t there, nonono…”, “Stupid, stupid, useless stupid…”_ —and Chris would rock gently, just enough to knock Josh back to a sense of calm.

Though it certainly wasn’t the most comfortable position, they still somehow wound up dozing off; unfortunately, they jolted awake to the sound of the front door slamming open and boots stomping off the snow. Chris felt Josh start shaking when five figures rounded the corner, Mike and Matt leading three cops.

“No, no, no; not true, just a…a vision, not real, not true!” His voice kept rising, hysterical and terrified and broken.

Chris felt guilty; he should have moved Josh once he was calm, to his room so he could sleep undisturbed. But he hadn’t. “Sh, sh, Joshy; it’s ok. Shh, it’s ok; it’s going to be ok. They’re going to help; it’s ok, sh, sh… They’re going to find Hannah and Beth, I promise! I promise…”

He hoped this was one thing he wouldn’t have to feel guilty over.


End file.
